“Well, I give you the tip for what it’s worth,” said Kettle; and that afternoon the steamer was run up alongside a dhow, which tried desperately to escape.  Her captain was dragged on board, and at that juncture Captain Kettle took upon himself to go below.  He knew what would probably take place, and, though he disapproved of such methods strongly, he felt he could not interfere.  He was in Bird, Bird and Co.’s employ, and what was being done would forward the firm’s interest.

But presently came a noise of bellowing from the deck above, and then that was followed by shrill screams as the upper gamut of agony was reached.  Kettle was prepared for rough handling, but at information gained by absolute torture he drew the line.  It was clear that these cruel beggars of Italians were going too far.

“By James!” he muttered to himself, “owners or no owners, I can’t stand this,” and started hurriedly to go back to the deck.  But before he reached the head of the companion-way the cries of pain ceased, and so he stood where he was on the stair, and waited.  The engines rumbled, and the steamer once more gathered way.  A clamor of barbaric voices reached him, which gradually died into quietude.  It was clear they were leaving the dhow behind.

Captain Kettle drew a long breath.  They would stick at little, these Dagos, in getting the salvage of the Grecian, and it seemed preposterous to suppose that once they gripped the specie in their own ringers they would ever give it up for the paltry pay which had been offered by Bird, Bird and Co.  Their own poverty was aching.  He saw it whenever he looked about the patched little steamer.  He felt it whenever he sat down to one of their painfully frugal meals.

Still, though no man knew more bitterly than Kettle himself from past experience what poverty meant, and how it cut, the poverty of these Italians was no concern of his just then.  They were paid servants of the owners exactly as he was, and it was his duty to see that they earned their hire.  He took it that he was one against the whole ship’s company, but the odds did not daunt him.  On the contrary, something of his old fighting spirit, which had been of late hustled into the background by snug commercial prosperity, came back to him.  And besides, he had always at his call that exquisite pride of race which has so many times given victory to the Anglo-Saxon over the Latin, when all reasonable balances should have made it go the other way.

By a sort of instinct he buttoned up his trim white drill coat, and stepped out on deck.  There would be no scuffle yet awhile.  With the specie that would make the temptation still snugly stored on the sea-floor, the dirty, untidy Italians were still all affability.  Indeed, as soon as he appeared, Tazzuchi himself stepped down off the upper bridge to give him the news.

“How do you think those crafty imps have managed it?” he cried, with a gesture.  “Why they dived down and cut off her masts below water level.  The funnel was out of sight already.  They just thought they were going to have the skimming of that wreck themselves.  No wonder we couldn’t pick her up.”